Sunday, July 24, 2016

Signed Bookplates

In general, bookplates used for book signings are not of interest to me.
In my collection I have made ta few exceptions..

Walter B. Gibson

The following expression will be familiar to many of you especially if you grew up in America between 1940 to 1960

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

That's right -The Shadow knows. The Shadow is a fictional character created by Walter B. Gibson, one of the most famous of the pulp heroes of the 1930s and 1940s. Born Kent Allard he assumed various identities for his crime fighting work, most notably that of Lamont Cranston.

Mr.Gibson was also very involved with magic and his book signing exlibris

reflects his interest

Al Jaffee

The blog has a mind of its own .It was not my intention to stop here..

Click on the words READ MORE below and to the left

"Allan "Al" Jaffee (born Abraham Jaffee,] March 13, 1921) is an American cartoonist. He is notable for his work in the satirical magazine Mad, including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in. As of 2015, Jaffee remains a regular in the magazine after sixty years and is its longest-running contributor. In the half-century between April 1964 and April 2013, only one issue of Mad was published without containing new material by Jaffee.

In a 2010 interview, Jaffee said, "Serious people my age are dead."

J.Edgar Hoover

I am not sure if Mr. Hoover used bookplates in his books. He sent these out to bookplate collectors who asked for one.

By the way the handprint in the background is not J Edgar reaching out from his crypt because I keep his bookplate in the cross dresser file.

I was trying to hold down a folded letter.when I scanned it and the accidental image appealed to me..

Ralph Hammond Innes

"He was born
in Horsham, Sussex, and educated at Cranbrook
School in Kent. He left in 1931 to work as a journalist,
initially with the Financial Times (at the time called
the Financial News). The Doppelganger, his first novel,
was published in 1937. In WWII he
served in the Royal Artillery, eventually rising to the rank of Major. During
the war, a number of his books were published, including Wreckers Must Breathe (1940), The Trojan Horse (1941) and Attack Alarm (1941), the last of which was based on his
experiences as an anti-aircraft gunner during the Battle of
Britain at RAF Kenley. After being demobilized in 1946, he worked
full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early successes. His novels are
notable for a fine attention to accurate detail in descriptions of places, such
as in Air Bridge (1951), set partially at RAF Gatow, RAF Membury after
its closure andRAF Wunstorf during
the Berlin
Airlift.

Innes went on to
produce books in a regular sequence, with six months of travel and research
followed by six months of writing. Many of his works featured events at sea. His
output decreased in the 1960s, but was still substantial. He became interested
in ecological themes. He continued writing until just before his death. His last
novel was Delta Connection (1996).

Unusually for the
thriller genre, Innes' protagonists were often not "heroes" in the typical
sense, but ordinary men suddenly thrust into extreme situations by circumstance.
Often, this involved being placed in a hostile environment (the Arctic, the open
sea, deserts), or unwittingly becoming involved in a larger conflict or
conspiracy. The protagonist generally is forced to rely on his own wits and
making best use of limited resources, rather than the weapons and gadgetry
commonly used by thriller writers.

Innes' great love and
experience of the sea, as an experienced yachtsman, was reflected in many of his
novels. He and his wife Dorothy both travelled in and raced their yachts Triune of Troy and Mary Deare. At his death he left the
bulk of his estate to the Association of Sea Training
Organisations, to enable others to gain training and experience in sailing
the element he loved."